“National Education Policy(NEP) 2016”- “Neo-Macaulay + Neo-Manu dharma” 

school

Education plays a vital role in enlightening the society. However it is also one among powerful tools in the hands of State through which a particular domain of knowledge is transferred to working mass and thus serves the ruling class interest and lay the foundation for seamless exploitation. Modi govt.’s “New education policy-2016(NEP)” is another step towards this. The recent draft on NEP is heavily stressing on “skill development” for the workers in our country. It is committed to produce a skilled bounded labor for global capital by denying education for 80% of working masses with the Brahminical value which is  referred as “global citizens, with their roots deeply embedded in Indian culture and traditions” in the preamble of the draft.

Last year Ministry of Human Resource development (MHRD) formed a five member committee headed by T. S. R. Subramanian to draft the New Education Policy-2016(NEP).  Four among these members are bureaucrats and the sole academician is J.S Rajput who made NCERT as courtyard of RSS while serving as chairman. The committee submitted the NEP report on April 30th. Subsequently MHRD has released 43 page document titled “Some inputs for the draft of New Education Policy 2016” and seeking the public opinion.

The committee claims that the quality of school education, in terms of learning outcomes, Is deniably poor, particularly in government schools. The committee proposes a dreadful recommendation to improve the outcomes by excluding majority of working masses. The draft says that “Alternative school (evening schools) will be provided for children’s from slums and migrant labors background; no detention policy will be limited up to class V and detention will be restored at the upper primary (6th-8th); Open schooling for the school dropouts, 10th exams will be at two levels: Part-A at a higher lever and part-B at a lower level; Only 10 lakh scholarship for higher education and so on;

As per RTE Act-2009 free and compulsory education is fundamental rights on or below the age of 14. But the implementation of NEP will lead to denial of school education for slum children who are in socially and economically deprived condition. According to the annual Status of Education Report -2014 (ASER) survey nearly 50% of Class 5 students and 25 % of class 8 students were not able to read a Class 2 level text and their basic arithmetic skill is poor. Mere restoration of detention policy above 5th class without assuring the quality will further increase the dropouts in upper primary. As per NEP 10th has two levels: Part-A at a higher lever and part-B at a lower level. Students who feel that science technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) is difficult can choose level-B. But they are not eligible to pursue the higher education in STEM stream. Further NEP recommends the national talent test after class 10th to receive the higher education fellowship. Currently 33.3 million students are enrolling in higher education but NEP will be offering only 1 million fellowships. i.e. a mere 3% of students can get fellowships. Moreover these exam will be mostly based on the CBSE frame work which will turn out to be beneficial for children from urban elite and those from rural area will be worst affected. A small section comprising the upper caste and upper middle class will be accessible to higher education. The District Information System for Education-2014 statistics reveals that level wise school drop outs for Ist –Vth, Ist– VIIth and Ist-Xth are 20%, 36.3% and 47.4% respectively. The recommendations of NEP instead of enhances the learning outcomes it presumably double the dropout level and the dropouts are tactically push to skill training. As per Prof. Anil Sadgopal(AIFRTE) “this policy will be aggressively pursued to exclude more than 80% of the Indian population comprising SCs, STs, OBCs and Muslims from education, and push them into skill shops.”

In the same line Modi government introduced the Child labor (Prohibition and protection) amendment act 2016.It allows the children to “help the family in the fields, do home-based work or work in a forest” after the school hours on a holidays and children can engaged in entertaining industry. “Home based work” is nothing but caste based occupation. Instead of abolishing child labor, RSS-Modi govt. is pushing the children to caste based occupations which in turns lead to compartmentalized caste system once again. The old Manu dharma denies the education for Panchmas and Suthras and legitimatizing the education for Brahmins which makes them so power full in the Brahminical system as well as and made them rulers of feudal system. Similarly in the Neo-Manu Dharma, New Education Policy-2016, creates a new division of laborer by denying the education for 80% of Indian population and training them as skilled wage labor to serve the imperialism and reserving the knowledge based work for small section of people, a regeneration of caste compartmentalization

NEP recommendations in higher education section are in line with WTO-GATS agreement.  NEP acts as the strategic framework to implement the GATS agreement completely. CEO in the governing bodies, Educational tribunal, curbing the student politics in campus; financial autonomy; compulsory intake of foreign students and faculty in higher education institutes; GAIN, dismantling the UGC and AICTE; MOOCs; allowing foreign universities; center for excellence; incubation centers; fees hike; allowing foreign direct investment(FDI) and so on. More than half of the recommendations have been already implemented in IITs.  For instance, MHRD singed a MoU with U.S. to import 1000 faculty every year to teach in Indian institutions under GIAN program. Each U.S. faculty salary is 7.2 lakh for 20 sessions. India signed similar MoU with Germany, Canada and other European countries. Further, MHRD decided to conduct a job fair in top institution (mostly from U.S.) to recruit a faculty for IITs and MHRD claims Indian students are (PhDs from IITs, NITs) not up to the mark. However 2,600 faculty positions are vacant in IITs and 16,000 faculty positions are vacant in IITs, NITs, IIITs, IISERs and central universities. NEP/MHRD worries more on foreign faculty than the qualified Indians. Any country who committed its education to WTO-GATS, mode-4 “Movement of natural person”,should give importance to teachers/professors from other countries. Indian education system is controlled by the WTO-GATS. Similarly trades in Goods, services and intellectual rights are also controlled by the WTO through various agreements (GATS, GATT, TRIPs) to serve the interest of the imperialists.(We referred as recolonization)

Macaulay education system trained Indian people who were British in their thought process but physically Indian so that they will serve British imperialists without any hesitant. Now Neo Macaulay education policy(NEP) will produce the millions of skilled work force as a cheap labor for global capital and it welcoming the foreign educational monopolies as a quality education provider to loot the Indian education market.

At last NEP recommends the Sanskrit must be a compulsory subject in schools. Already, MHRD has initiated several activities with an agenda; to saffronize young minds such as imposing Sanskrit incentral government schools and Sanskrit cell in IITs with an intention to achieve their long term agenda Hindu-Hindi-Hindu Rashtra. The text book will preach Rama is the greatest king in Tamilnadu, Mahabali is demon, Artificial intelligence were discovered in Vedic period,  Aerodynamics laboratory was first established in Ayodya and so on. Such an unscientific, irrational nonsense will be taught in class rooms as an Indian history and our glorious past. Our future generation’s mind will be flooded with the conservative thoughts and superstitious beliefs which numb the rational and scientific thinking and nurture the slave character in the thought process. Naturally, such an employee in a factory won’t understand and question the limitless exploitation of global capital. During feudal era what caste system does for the feudal exploitation similarly, in the recolonization era, Hindutva will play a same role in protecting/justifying the exploitation by the imperialist’s. Therefore Hindu Rastra is not merely a Hindu state. It is a state which assures subordination to perpetual exploitation of U.S. imperialist on Indian working mass and Natural resources.  Such an anti-people education policy must be burnt at any cost.

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